Things To Do With Beer Kegs At Your Next Party
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Beer Kegs.

Beer kegs allow you to buy your favorite ale or lager in volume. Standard kegs have a volume of 15.5 gallons (US) or 12.5 gallons (UK Imperial). That equates to 1,984 ounces, or about 165 glasses of beer at 12 ounces each. Keg beer is inexpensive because of the bulk discount, with no need for hundreds of cans or bottles.

Kegs of beer are extremely popular at college parties, where students with limited funds can combine resources to buy lots of beer. Cheap plastic cups are the standard beer drinkware at these parties, colloquially known as "keggers."

The keg was historically a wooden barrel used for holding nails. Kegs made the transition to holding beer, and became even more popular when mechanical pumps were added to the system. The modern beer keg is made of stainless steel, or more frequently, aluminum. These metals do not corrode and are easy to sanitize. Those properties make it easy for beer wholesalers to clean, refill and reuse empty kegs.

The full US keg holds 15.5 gallons. The combined weight of the keg and the beer is estimated to be 140 to 170 pounds. Kegs of beer come in other sizes too. The full keg is also called a half barrel. Half kegs are called pony kegs or quarter barrels. The five gallon Cornelius keg is also called a Corney keg or a soda keg. Corney kegs were formerly used to hold the syrup for carbonated soft drinks, and are not considered to be true kegs.

Renting or hiring a keg is straightforward. You must supply proper identification and leave a deposit. The deposit is returned when you bring the keg back. Bring several friends that can help you load, unload, and carry the keg. Be very careful not to shake the keg during transport, as this creates excessive foam on the beer. Rolling the keg from the car to the house is not advised for this reason.

The next keg rule is to keep it cold. Carbonation dissolves better in cold liquid. Warm kegs will worsen the foam problem even if you took care not to shake it. Most kegs will not fit in the refrigerator, even if you remove all the trays and drawers. Even if it does fit, the door will be constantly opened. This slows down the cooling of the beer. Place the keg in a large, clean container such as a new trash can. Pack it in ice to keep it cool.

You can play many drinking games with a keg of beer. Some involve the empty keg but no drinking. These include "keg races," in which the empty keg becomes an added encumbrance while the contestants race or perform other physical feats. Another empty keg game is keg tossing.

The most popular games, of course, involve the keg's contents. Many of these games challenge contestants to consume a given amount of beer prior to performing difficult physical feats. Games of skill (or lack thereof) at a kegger include beer pong, quarters, and flip cup. Some games challenge players to drink the most cups of beer in a given time, or even to see how long it takes teams to drain a full keg. If you plan to enjoy games with beer kegs or their contents, do so safely.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, Amazon, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.